Little Earthquakes

There was an earthquake in Maryland at 5:00 a.m. today.  I was awake when it happened.  The windows rattled and I felt the house shake a little, but I thought it was just thunder and strong wind.  It was a 3.6 magnitude quake, so it was noticeable.  But what jolted me more than the strength of the quake was that it happened at all.  I didn't know Maryland had any fault lines, let alone an active one.

The last time I felt an earthquake was when I was living in California. I was in college but home for the weekend.  It was past midnight and my friends and I were driving back to my house when the sky turned orange and the streetlights sizzled -- the quake had blown power lines.  My parents had been asleep in their bed.  When my mother heard me come in she came downstairs.  My father stayed in bed and turned on the news.  My mother, always fearing The Big One that has been predicted for California for as long as I can remember, was a bit breathless, but my father remained calm.  His philosophy about natural disasters was that if it's bad enough to kill you, it's bad enough to kill those around you whom you love, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.  What you should fear, he thought, was everyone around you being killed but you being spared and being left all alone in this world.   

Because of my mother's fear of The Big One, we were always prepared with an emergency plan.  At school we had earthquake drills, where we ducked beneath desks, head tucked into laps and arms wrapped protectively over heads.  But at home, the plan was to stand underneath a doorway, which is supposedly the sturdiest part of the house.  Back then both our dining and breakfast tables were glass, so it vexed my mother to no end that we didn't have a table under which to duck when The Big One hit.  Years later she replaced the glass breakfast table for a large wooden one, and our plan changed from standing underneath a doorway to going under that table.  In the trunks of our cars, my mother had packed food, water, medicines, first aid kits, flashlights, flares, and blankets.  At one point someone predicted that The Big One would be so strong that California would break off, drift into the Pacific Ocean, and sink. This precipitated special features on Nostradamus, the accuracy of his prophecies, and references to his works pointing to The Big One happening imminently.  During that time, we packed extra clothes and shoes in the car, too, in case we had to evacuate.  We designated my cousin in Texas to be our check point person in case we weren't at home when The Big One happened and we couldn't find each other in the post-quake chaos. These preparations weren't excessive, either.  It seemed like everyone was equally prepared as we were.  When you live in California, the thought of The Big One is never very far from your thoughts.

My mother feels a certain sense of relief when she stays with us in Maryland because she is free from worry over The Big One.  So when I called her today to tell her about our earthquake, I was surprised by her nonchalance.  "Oh, that's nothing," she said when I told her the magnitude of the quake.  "Remember the Northridge earthquake in 1994 -- that was 6.7," she said.  That quake didn't sink California, but people died, houses collapsed, and parts of a freeway fell.  That might have been The Big One.  Maryland's quake made headline news today, but it was "nothing" to someone accustomed to anticipating a quake so strong that it would sink a sizeble chunk of the continent.

The little earthquake this morning coincidentally took place as I was experiencing a shake up of sorts in my personal life.  My oldest, and one of my closest, friends dumped me by email this week.  From my perspective the disagreement that ultimately led to the disintegration of our relationship seemed minor, but obviously her perception of the events is different.  I have to admit that I have been in shock for the past few days.  But it wasn't the magnitude of the event that got to me, it was the fact that it happened at all.  That she would end our friendship under any circumstances came as a shock the way today's earthquake came as a shock:  I didn't think it was possible.

There was a time when a close friend's "breaking up" with me might have been catastrophic.  But I'm older now, and I've experienced some pretty significant earthquakes in my life.  My father dying unexpectedly was The Big One for me.  That day, a part of me broke off, drifted and sank someplace dark.  But the rest remained intact, as he would have wanted.   Here's the thing about earthquakes:  When you spend years anticipating The Big One, and then The Big One happens and you survive it, other earthquakes are just little ones. 

I feel my friend's absence from my life right now because the our breakup just happened, and in my mind the event is on the front page.  But like today's earthquake, tomorrow it will be old news, but for follow-up stories about how there were no serious injuries or significant structural damage.